A History of Ancient Britain (2011–…): Season 2, Episode 2 - Age of Warriors - full transcript

Continuing his journey into our ancient past, Neil Oliver explores the age of Celtic Britain - a time of warriors, druids, and kings of unimaginable wealth. Neil encounters a celebrated warrior from 300 BC, owner of the finest Iron Age sword ever discovered. He tries his hand at divination in an effort to discover the power of Celtic priests and searches into his own DNA for clues to Celtic identity.

This is the story
of how Britain came to be,

of how our land and its people

were forged over thousands of years
of ancient history.

This Britain is a strange
and alien world,

a world that contains the hidden story
of our distant, prehistoric past.

After more than 1,000 years,

the international world
of the Bronze Age had collapsed.

A horde like this is a snapshot
of the time

when bronze was no longer working
as the glue of society.

A new Britain began to emerge,
a whole new era,

the Iron Age.



There's nothing different about it
from the tools we use today.

And et it's 2,500 ears old.

A Britain of powerful
regional identities,

where land and grain had replaced bronze
as a source of prestige.

Now, the journey continues

with the next chapter in our epic story.

He was laid in his grave
and, soon thereafter,

three spears were thrust in.

This would've been a moment
of huge drama.

A time of Iron Age warriors
and Celtic glory,

a tipping point in our history,

when tribal leaders began to believe
they were more than chieftains.

They were kings.

Ripped By mstoll



I'm going back 2,500 years

to 500 BC.

This is Britain, right in the heart
of the Iron Age,

a time of huge transformation
for our land and its people.

Ever since the end of the Bronze Age,

a few hundred years earlier,
a new Britain had begun to emerge.

And it was a more insular Britain,
with strong regional identities.

This was a world of tall broch towers
in the north

and communal hill forts in the south.

Both responses to the importance
of controlling the land.

What was common across Britain
was that trade was focused locally

and wealth was no longer centred
around bronze, as it had been.

It was now centred around grain.

Britain was entering a new era,

in which the people who controlled land
would gain wealth and power,

the like of which
had never been seen before.

At the top of this hill are the remains
of an Iron Age hill fort

that holds evidence of the beginning
of this new age.

This isn't just any old hill fort.

This is Danebury.
This is a completely different beast.

A mega hill fort.
And it's one of the first of its type.

Farmers here were cultivating
ever greater tracts of land,

harvesting more and more grain.

This wasn't subsistence farming.

This was about creating
a surplus to trade.

But there was a problem
with all of that.

And you can see it over there,
just on the horizon.

That bump into the sky there
is another hill fort.

Woolbury hill fort.
And it's not the only one.

On a clear day, from up here,
you can see another three hill forts

and they were all equally prosperous.

And, crucially, they were all beginning
to want more and more land.

For the first time in our history,

Britain, or parts of it,
were actually starting to fill up.

After all those millennia of hunting
and then the early farming,

the physical size of our island
was actually beginning to tell.

And where the territories
of those hill fort communities

were starting to rub
against one another,

there was one consequence
and one consequence only.

And that was friction.

What's happening is that the land
is being used more and more and more.

It's good land, it's rich land.
It encourages the population to grow.

But you can only grow
to a certain extent

and the population will continue to grow
beyond the holding capacity of the land.

And when you get to that point,
you get tension.

And how does the instability,
the pressure, manifest itself?

Normally, in terms
of aggression and warfare.

Resources are rare.
You fight for resources.

You can have long, long periods
of peace, I think,

and then, perhaps in a confrontation,

some young man would be hurt,
everyone would be angry

and it would escalate into outright,
really violent warfare.

Sir Barry has studied
the archaeology of Danebury

for over three decades.

These are iron spear heads.

- Now look at that one.
- That's a mean thing.

- A long shank.
Uh-huh.

- Very sharp point.
- Gosh.

And that's been done
with the intention to kill.

Everything about it is violent.

Yes, it is absolutely redolent
of violence.

And this is all coming from in here?

Everything here is from within Danebury,

- yes.
- Okay.

We've also got evidence
from the human bones themselves.

This is the real hard evidence.

- Here we are. We've got the skull.
- Oh!

- You can see the eye sockets there.
- Mmm-hmm.

- And you see that hole there?
- And that's got the same section...

It's exactly the same section
as that spear.

He would have copped a spear directly
through the top of his head there.

But the fascinating thing about this guy

is he also had a pretty hefty bash
on the head,

- which has caved a bit of the skull in.
- And that's not been enough to kill?

No, no, because if you turn inside,
you see the damage

that it's done inside...

But it's all healed over.

- So, he must have had a headache...
- That's so graphic.

And possibly brain damage,

but was still fit enough, presumably,
to go into battle

some months, perhaps some years later,

to end up with that spear in his head.

Gosh! So he went into battle
already knowing

what it was like to face these weapons?

He'd probably been into battle
many times, this guy.

As indeed had many of them.

- See, we've got many more skulls here.
- Goodness! There's no end of it up here.

No, no, no. Again, just close
to where we're standing

was a very large pit into which
they'd thrown body parts.

Cleaning up after a battle, presumably.
A large number of body parts

and some of these skulls
came from there.

So, people are dying
in significant numbers

that they're not even
being accorded burial?

- They are just being cleared away?
- Cleared away.

You see here, a whole series of slivers

taken off his skull there,
with glancing blows.

Someone coming in, yeah.

He wouldn't have needed
a haircut after that.

But the coup de gr?ce was that.
A great sword slash.

Goodness me! That has
not been... That's not healed over.

- No, that was the end of him.
- Oh!

And, altogether, this shows what
an incredibly violent life people lived.

What a world they inhabited with
the threat of this hanging over them.

Yes, and I think they would have been
aware of it the whole time.

You can imagine, here in Danebury,

these young guys coming back from battle
with all their scars

and living in the community
with noses cut off, ears cut off.

Horrendous injuries.

They must have been aware
every moment of their day

of just how violent life was.

What's unfolding now
is something quite new.

The time of the peaceful,
local farming collective is over.

By 400 BC, in southern Britain at least,

the area is descending
into bloody conflict.

And what's interesting
about that conflict

is the kind of personality
that it encourages.

As the need to fight and defend
became more important,

so the status of those who could
do the fighting and defending increased.

You can't know these things for certain,

but it's tempting to imagine
that, in peaceful times,

these communities were controlled
by councils of elders

or the heads of important families.
But not any more.

Now, now that the fighting had started,

was the time of heroes, champions,
men who could wield swords.

These were the type
who could expand territories,

defend territories,
bring upstarts to heel.

Britain was entering a period
we call the Middle Iron Age,

a time when local power bases
fought it out for power and prestige

and where a man's status
had to be earned in battle.

But, out of bloody conflict,

something was about to emerge
that was sublime.

This is one of the finest,
most astonishing

pieces of early art
ever produced in Britain.

It is from 350 years BC
and it's called the Battersea Shield.

It's too small
to have been used in warfare.

It's completely wrong for combat.
It's too elaborate.

This is ceremonial.

Owned by a war lord

and perhaps carried
at the head of a victory parade.

This is an object that demonstrates
technical perfection

and also artistic genius.

This is the beginning of something
utterly new in our history.

A sudden blossoming of art and design.

The great continental rivers
were trade routes,

bringing art from the classical world
to the south.

As northern tribes controlling
these routes

developed a taste for luxury goods,

they also began to invent
a new, decorative style.

This was the birth
of Celtic art.

And around 350 BC,
when it came to Britain,

local craftsmen took it
to completely new heights.

It's said that the innovation
and sophistication

of British Celtic art
is the single greatest contribution

by these islands
to the world of art ever.

And the proof of that statement
is here in my hands.

This is the magnificent Kirkburn Sword.

And it was excavated from a grave
in east Yorkshire.

Unlike earlier swords,
this is a composite item.

It required the meticulous
design and fabrication

of 70 separate pieces,
which were then assembled.

There's iron here, in the blade.

There's bronze on the scabbard.
There's horn.

It's also been a working sword.

Unlike the shield,
this actually saw battle.

And we know that because
analysis of the metal indicates

that it was repaired
on at least one occasion, possibly more.

These red enamel additions

are said to represent
freshly spilled blood.

But it's the delicate nature
of the perfection of this art

that's new in Britain.

And what's most fascinating of all

is that it's embodied, not in jewellery,

but in the objects that could be
afforded by that class of people

that deserved things like this,

warriors, the most powerful warriors.

But finely decorated swords
were not the only symbol of elite power,

as the skeleton of a horse
buried at Danebury hill fort reveals.

The lifetime activities of a horse

will leave different markers
in the skeleton.

And we're looking for clues as to what

that animal was used for
during its life.

Throughout prehistory,

horses were uncommon in Britain,
even on farms.

And forensic studies of this one
found something unprecedented.

If you look here,
at the front of the tooth

there's a small, white,
parallel-sided band of enamel.

This is evidence
that the horse was bitted.

And if you look on this vertebrae,
there's a fracture

running through the epiphysis
of the vertebrae.

And this is evidence
that this horse was ridden.

And this is the first time
we have evidence

for riding in prehistoric Britain.

These bones reveal
the very beginning of the ridden horse,

a symbol of power.

Use of horses would have
revolutionised warfare.

It would have changed raiding.

People could raid further distances
and faster.

You could attack
a neighbouring settlement,

take control of their cattle.

A man on horseback would have had
major advantages over a man on foot.

By 300 BC,
Britain was becoming the land

that resonates in ancient myths
and folk memory.

A land of warrior heroes,
wielding power from horseback,

armed with glinting,
decorated Celtic swords.

Incredibly, the remains of a warrior
from this time still survive.

The very man who once owned and wielded

the finest Iron Age sword
ever found in Britain.

The Kirkburn Warrior.

When he died, he was aged
somewhere between 20 and 35 years,

powerfully built, you would have thought
in the prime of his life.

And there's nothing on the skeleton
to indicate why he died.

There's no great catastrophic injury,

no caved-in skull, no massive
sword wounds to the long bones.

It is still possible though
that he died in battle.

If he suffered a wound
that severed a major artery

or punctured a vital organ,

he could have bled to death
and there'd be no sign

on the skeleton to reveal that
as the cause of death.

The circumstances of his burial
are fascinating.

He was laid in his grave
and, soon thereafter,

three spears were thrust in,

possibly penetrating the dead body.

Now, this would have been
a moment of huge drama

for those witnessing
the funerary ritual.

Here was a man whose martial prowess

was being marked out very blatantly.

Then the grave was
completely backfilled,

leaving the shafts sticking out
of the ground,

bristling out of the mound.

So, they would have been visible
from some distance.

They would have marked out
that grave as that of a warrior

and it could have become
a place of homage,

so that warriors who remembered him
from life could have grown

old and grey, regaling their children
and grandchildren

with stories about this man,

remembering what a great
and powerful warrior

now lay buried in that special grave.

The world of the Kirkburn Warrior
is the beginning

of a new era in the history
of our land and its people.

This is the time of Celtic Britain,

a world of magic, mystery
and spiritual destiny.

And clues to the birth of this new age

can be found
in the northeast of England.

I've come to Yorkshire, because
20 or so miles away in that direction

is where the Kirkburn Warrior
was buried,

around 300 years BC,
along with his splendid sword.

And what's more, he wasn't the only one.

In the Iron Age, formal burial was rare.

In most cases, when people died,
their bodies were simply laid out

and the bones gradually picked clean
by animals and birds.

If you were lucky,
you might have got a cremation.

But, up here, in the chalk uplands
of east Yorkshire,

something a bit different was going on.

Melanie Giles has been studying
the Iron Age of east Yorkshire

for more than a decade.

So, what exactly is in this field?

This is an Iron Age cemetery.

And what you're looking at
is small barrows.

Each one of those is somebody's grave.

So, all these bumps
of different sizes and heights

- contain a person?
- Indeed, yes.

Is this the only cemetery of its kind?

No, there are many more like it
across east and into north Yorkshire.

And when you say east
and north Yorkshire,

is that the limit
of cemeteries like these?

Yes, they're really unique in Britain.

But there are cemeteries like this
in modern-day France,

in the Marne/Moselle region.

So, what is going on then?

If this is a French cemetery,
what is it doing here?

Well, I don't know that
it's a French cemetery.

There's lots of different ideas
about this, lots of different debates.

Some people thought
it was a massive invasion,

a kind of war band coming across.

But, in fact, most of these people
look as if they're local,

they were born and brought up here.

So, we might be looking
at just a small group

of important or powerful people
coming across from the Continent.

And some of the grave goods
we find in those barrows

reinforce that sense that there
are contacts with the Continent.

The Celtic culture
that came to represent an entire era

might have had its genesis right here,

in the continentally connected
warrior elites of east Yorkshire.

So, a warrior of the status,
say, of the Kirkburn Warrior,

someone of that style and demeanour?

Absolutely, and he was buried
just about 10 miles from here.

Okay. So he's part of this fashion?

Yes, and figures like that,
who maybe were skilled at fighting

or had achieved something in their life,

or maybe even through
the manner of their death,

were treated to special kinds
of burials.

But the Yorkshire burials
have revealed something else

that was remarkable
about this new culture.

Because here, it seems,

it was not only great warriors
who were revered.

Our picture of ancient Britain
will always be incomplete

because often the evidence
we find is of important men.

The artefacts are often
symbols of marital prowess.

What's remarkable, here in Yorkshire,
is that around 300 BC,

we start to find evidence of something

that's been missing
from the story so far.

And that is important women.

This is the skeleton of a woman who died

at least in her late 40s,
possibly even older than that.

But for all that she was an older,
mature woman,

her teeth are in remarkably good shape,

which suggests she had access
to a good, even privileged diet.

But, much more revealing and fascinating

than her mere bones,

are the circumstances
in which she was buried.

This woman was buried lying on

or inside a chariot.

And around her were also placed

all the furniture for horse driving.

Quite hard to describe these. I suppose
they're the equivalent of hub caps.

Decoration that would have gone around

the knobbly bit that sticks out
from the wheel.

These are parts of the bit
that the horse would have in its mouth,

through which the reins passed,

which give the driver control
over the horse's head.

But also, in this woman's grave,
are items

altogether more mysterious,
even magical.

This metal cylinder,

beautifully decorated
with Celtic art work.

Now, it's completely sealed.

You can't get into it,
you can't open it.

If it ever did contain anything,
it must have been organic

and very small so that
with the passage of millennia

that has decayed and disappeared.

Maybe it was some beans or seeds,

so that it could be used
as a ceremonial rattle.

Perhaps even more powerful is this.

It's been called a mirror.

I suspect because,
in terms of its shape,

that's exactly what it looks like.

But, for me, the word mirror
downgrades this object.

It makes it seem trivial
and to do with vanity.

This, in its heyday,
would have been highly-polished iron.

But, even at its best,
the reflection that it offered

would always have been blurred.

It's now suggested that items
such as these were used

not to reflect back our world,

but to open a portal
into a world beyond,

the world of the ancestors.

That, by owning this,
and having access to it,

you were able to communicate
directly with the dead.

So, with these items here,

it is easy to understand
that whoever this woman was,

once upon a time, she really mattered.

She was a woman of substance.

She was revered, she was wise

and, in her community,
she was someone of real power.

By 200 BC,

Celtic culture had spread
right across our land

and power was increasingly
becoming concentrated

in the hands of fewer,
bigger, regional leaders.

The chieftains of the
emerging Celtic tribes of Britain.

The big question, though,
is just who were these Celts?

Here in Britain, especially
along the so-called Celtic fringe

of Cornwall, Wales and Scotland,

Celticness is an emotive subject.

There are people who believe
that it connects them

to their sense of their own history,

that it underpins their sense of self
and of inheritance.

There are even those who believe
in an entirely separate Celtic race.

And how do I feel about that?

Well, as a Scot, I feel a sense
of belonging to my country.

I feel in a sense that my homeland
belongs to me.

But whether or not that's the same

as the sense of a separate
ethnic identity,

I'd need help to answer that one.

I'm sending a sample
of my DNA for analysis

in an attempt to try and find out
where my Scottish ancestors came from.

And, in particular, to find out
whether they were living in Britain

during the height
of the Celtic Iron Age.

Using statistical
genetic dating methods,

Peter Forster believes
he can work out the detailed prehistory

of living individuals.

I know it's very complicated science
that's involved,

but can you tell me, in simple terms,
who I am and where I come from?

I'll give it a try.
So, what we've done, in a nutshell,

is to take a look
at two stretches of DNA, of your DNA,

which allow us to separately trace

your mother's line
back into deep prehistory

and your father's line
back into deep prehistory.

Okay.

So, to start with we've looked
at your mother's DNA, where her female

- ancestry traces back to.
- Mmm-hmm.

In theory, you could have matches
from all over the world,

but let's take a look
what they are in fact.

- Right.
- So, this...

Oh! Big red spot on Scotland.

- Yeah, let me zoom in...
- That's fascinating.

- And it's the Western Isles of Scotland.
- Yes.

We've got no recent historical
connection to the islands.

- Well, it is not only Western Isles.
- Mmm-hmm.

We've some more matches
in mainland Scotland.

In simple terms, everything about my mum
is pointing in the direction of Scotland

and having been in Scotland
for a long, long time.

That's right because, as you can see,
it's all over Scotland.

It's not just one particular island
or location.

So, that argues for a presence
of your mother's line in Scotland

way back into prehistory,
thousands of years ago.

So, what about my dad then?

Yes, your father's line
was a bit of a surprise.

So, let's see. That's the result
for the father's line.

Right.

Your particular paternal lineage

is more common in southern Europe
and eastern Europe.

There's nothing from my dad's DNA
in Britain at all.

Well, it's more than that in fact.

There is nothing in Scandinavia,
in northern Europe.

So, it is a southern
and eastern European profile.

So, the individuals or individual
in my father's line

only came to Britain,
in DNA terms, relatively recently?

Yes, that is correct.

Wait until I tell him.

Wait until I tell my Scottish dad
that he's not from Scotland.

Experts have tried again and again
to identify a Celtic bloodline,

but the most they can really agree on,

is that, just as in my case,
ancestry is complicated.

Many people today
believe that, "Celtic,"

is no more than a collective term
to describe a whole host of peoples

who lived in Europe
around 2,000 years ago

and shared common cultural values.

It's possible, it's even likely,
that there never was

a separate ethnic Celtic identity.

There is certainly no absolute evidence
for a separate Celtic race,

however disappointing
some people might find that fact.

But what we do have
and what we do have evidence for

is a common Celtic heritage.

The Celts appreciated
similar art and design

and they held shared values
of status and hierarchy.

And linguists also believe
they shared a common language,

a language we can decipher,

even after 2,000 years.

Paul, how much do we know about what
the Iron Age would have sounded like

in terms of the spoken word?

Well, we know something about it
in the sense

that the descendent languages
from this period in Britain

do survive in the form of Welsh
and Cornish and Breton,

and, slightly more distantly,
with Irish and Scots Gaelic.

So that, if we were to take
a particular word,

we would know that
the ancient British word for a boar

would be turcos,
because we have Welsh turc, and so on.

And, to take another example,

maglos would be the word
for a prince or a lord

on the basis of Welsh mael
and Irish morl.

And these forms one can reconstruct
to produce those forms.

If you were to take
a modern-day English speaker

and plunk them down
in an Iron Age marketplace,

what would be most striking
about the voices around them?

I think the most striking thing probably

is that they wouldn't
understand a word of it,

because this is a language group
that is unrelated,

or only distantly related, to English.

So, you'd be in the market
and you'd say,

"Mai tarme turcon,"sell me a boar.

And there's nothing there,
apart, perhaps, from the "me"

which an English speaker
would understand.

If a traveller was to go
from the southwest of England

to the northeast of Scotland,
would they hear the language

changing as though with dialects?

Yes, almost certainly.

That's probably definitely the case,
by virtue of the fact

that these are languages that
develop into different languages.

So, Welsh as separate from Cornish,
and so on and so forth.

So, there probably
was that kind of variation,

but the kind of variation where, from
mile on mile, neighbour to neighbour,

they perfectly well
would understand each other.

But, if you moved them all the way
from the southwest to the northeast,

they would probably struggle,
I would have thought.

Can you construct a sentence for me,
so that I can get a sense

of the rhythm and the cadence
of that ancient British language?

Well, okay. Um...

Think of a lord, a prince,
like you, for example,

coming into the feasting hall.

And people would rise
and would say to you...

I certainly hope so.

"Arut regami magleh mutakeh,"

which would mean basically something
like, "I honour you, long-haired lord."

Did you just call me a hippy in Celtic?

Possibly.

I'm used to seeing
and handling artefacts.

Things made of metal, stone and pottery.

So, it's quite a strange feeling to get
the sounds of the Iron Age as well.

It almost sounds crass to say it,

but it brings that time back to life.

If you take the language,

if you had a Gaelic speaker from
the Western Isles or a Welsh speaker,

while they perhaps couldn't have
a conversation with an Iron Age warrior,

there's every possibility that
they could make themselves understood.

So the world of the past and the modern
world would collide at that point.

The past is very close,
if you approach it in the right way.

Less than 200 years
after the Kirkburn Warrior,

the tribes of Britain
might still have been rivals,

but they were also bound
by a common Celtic culture.

In the Southern Highlands of Scotland,
using experimental archaeology,

it's even possible to get close
to the reality of life

at the time of the Celtic Iron Age.

Look at that.
It's a modern reconstruction

of a building called a crannog,

which is a large house
built on a platform

that sits above the waters of the loch.

This would have been the home,
2,000 ears ago, of a local chieftain.

A building like that
is about status and prestige.

It's visible for miles around.

You're essentially saying to people,

"Here I am. And if you think you can
take this from me, do your best."

In this world of Celtic tribes,

leaders needed to be
more than powerful warriors.

They needed diplomatic skills
and political nous, too.

And artefacts found here, in Loch Tay,

bear testament to how
Iron Age politics were conducted.

This is a small, circular, wooden plate

recovered from the loch.

In Iron Age Britain,
status wasn't just about

items of jewellery
and personal adornment.

It was about your ability
to draw people to you.

Men, fighting men, who were loyal
to you, who would do your bidding.

And a key way of getting to them

was, as they say,
through their stomachs.

The way to a man's heart.

And so you have to picture a chieftain,
perhaps the chieftain of the area

gathering men to him,

and they would be fed by him
to show that he was a big man.

The story here,
from this little wooden plate,

is that feasting was a key part

of power broking
in late Iron Age Britain.

Barrie Andrian,
who helped create the crannog,

is an expert in feasting.

And many of the same wild plants

that would have been
eaten 2,000 years ago

still grow around the area today.

They didn't have access

to the kinds of vegetables
that we have today.

Nothing like onions and potatoes,
and our kind of staples.

So, foraging would have been a very,
very important source of food for them.

There are lots of edible greens here.

Things like chickweed and sorrel,
which has a lemony taste.

See what you think.

It has got a very...
It's got a very... definite flavour.

- This is sorrel.
- Mmm-hmm.

I'm going to put that in the stew.
Just to give it a kick.

Yeah, there's a real acidy, citrusy...
That's a strong flavour.

The scale and variety of food
offered by a chieftain

would have been a mark of his status
and, by extension, his power.

We have a fantastic amount
of organic material

that we've uncovered and discovered
underwater here in Loch Tay

at one of the crannog sites.
More than 160 different types

of edible plants.
So this is a mere representative sample.

Just a handful, literally,
of some of those.

- Let me just try that one.
- Wild mushroom and barley.

Oh, that is delicious.
The barley is very strong there.

- There is an echo of Scotch broth.
- Yeah, I think it would be.

Over the hearth, a masterpiece
of decorative wrought ironwork

would have supported a spit-roast

and proclaimed the standing
of its owner.

This is an example
or representation of a firedog.

The firedog would have been
a high status,

really classy piece of art.

And ou can see the curve
of the back of the head.

It's maybe a horse or a bull

with the horns sticking out,
or maybe even a wild boar.

But, obviously something important,
something symbolic.

And if you look at the craftsmanship,

these are meant to represent
wealth and power.

So, it's another symbol of status.

It's food for show, isn't it?
It's food as a performance.

Absolutely.
They definitely weren't hiding.

A feast was a hugely
important social exercise.

It was almost a ritual in its own right.

Everyone attending the event
would have understood the etiquette.

They would have been able to read
every nuance, every sign, every gesture.

The leader had to be
a skilled politician to pull it off,

to read people correctly
and make accurate assessments

of his followers,
or his would-be followers.

Who would be served first?

Who would get the choicest cuts of meat?

Who would be left
with the cold shoulder?

And because it was happening publicly,

it was open to dispute.

Because, after all, it is a room
full of fiery hot-blooded Celts.

And if one of them felt
that he was being slighted

when he should have been praised,
then, if he felt strong enough,

he would have the opportunity
to make his feelings clear.

But, by the end of the night,
everyone would have understood

where they were,
how they related to one another,

who was top dog
and who was at the bottom.

Over just a few hundred years,

the structure of power
had reshaped Iron Age Britain,

from an age of elite local warriors

to increasingly powerful
Celtic chieftains.

By around 100 BC, power had
become concentrated in the hands

of a narrow, social elite.

People who controlled
such an extent of trade and territory

that they became something new.

The first of the mega rich.

And some of the evidence for that

can be seen back here
at the British Museum.

This is a late Iron Age gold torc,

an elaborate, lavish piece of jewellery
worn around the neck.

It is absolutely breathtaking.

The weight of gold,
just the lustre of it.

It's been compared,
in terms of its significance,

as being right up there
with the British crown jewels.

And ou can surely see why.

It's been made

by twisting individual strands of gold

to create these corkscrewing spirals.

And then the ends have been fitted
into these round terminals.

The goldsmith, the artist
has really gone to town

on adding decoration
to give it texture and depth.

It dates to around 75 years BC.

And it's quite different in form

from the earlier military art,

like the Battersea Shield,
the Kirkburn Sword.

This is the advent of something
quite new in Britain.

This is extreme wealth,
extreme showing off.

And what you have here,

in the owner of this,

is a man who is seeing himself

and, perhaps more importantly,
being seen by his followers,

as nothing less than a king.

Some of the tribal territories
of Britain were now ruled

by men so powerful,

they even began
to issue their own coins.

Look at these.

These are some of the earliest coins
ever found in England.

The Celtic coin makers are making coins
in their own image, if you like.

They're using Celtic art.

Rather than straightforward
representations of heads,

they're going for something abstract.

Just like today, coins have always been

representations of the state,
often the head of state.

And the same thing is happening here.

This torc, which dates from the same
period as these three gold coins,

is a...
It's obviously a symbol of authority.

But this is where you start to get
the authority of the state

becoming something that's transferable.

Coins are in circulation,
they're distributed.

This is about society
being permeated by the portable,

transferable symbols of the state
and of the king.

But if there were people at the top
with almost unimaginable wealth,

there were also people at the bottom.

And evidence for that can be found
at the National Museum of Wales.

As well as gold,
every important Celtic leader wanted

prestige goods from mainland Europe,

olive oil, wine, exotic tableware,
all the accoutrements of civilisation.

To pay for it, they exported wool,
animal hides, hunting dogs.

But there was also a darker price
to be paid for all that luxury.

In European markets, one commodity
above all else was in great demand.

Tall, strong, British manpower.

Look at this.

It's an iron slave chain.

It's over 2,000 years old.

Now, this obviously was the part
made to go round the slave's neck.

It would fit tightly.
Might even make it hard to breathe.

And just half a metre,
a foot and a half, say, of iron chain

separates each slave in the line
as they shuffle along

to wherever they're going.

It's fantastically heavy

and so well preserved,
you get a real sense

of what it would have felt like
to be burdened with this

and to feel the way that these
would have chafed at the neck.

For every king or queen in the Iron Age,

there would have to have been
countless, countless slaves.

Gold jewellery, works of art,

they give a glimpse of life for people
at the top end of society.

But it's items like this

that brings you face to face
with what Iron Age reality

must have been like for those thousands
and thousands of people

who inhabited the bottom of society.

Just a few hundred years earlier,
many people in Britain

had lived in egalitarian
farming communities.

But now, in the late Celtic Iron Age,
all that had changed.

By 75 BC, Britain was a land
of hard, social divides.

Kings at the top, slaves at the bottom.

The rest of us, presumably
the vast majority, somewhere in between.

But there was another class of people.

They were the spiritual leaders,
the wise men of Celtic society.

The Druids.

Miranda Green is an Iron Age
archaeologist and Druid specialist.

Within the whole mix of society, you
know, you've got kings and aristocrats,

you've got ordinary people,
you've got slaves at the bottom.

- Where are the Druids in that picture?
- Right up at the top.

I would think more important
than the kings or the tribal leaders.

We know that the kings
listened to their advice.

They were like
the Old Testament prophets.

And one of the things that make them
important is that they overarch society.

So that you might have kings of tribes,

but the Druids would connect with
each other through huge areas of Europe,

so they acted
like a kind of Celtic glue.

So, really crucial
to the working of society?

Crucial and they even intervened
in cases of warfare.

They could actually walk into the middle
of a battlefield and stop the war.

- Right. Okay.
- So, they were that important.

Even though they didn't
actually fight themselves.

So, they were absolutely
to be taken seriously?

They were. And, indeed,
to go against a Druid would be

almost be as bad as being dead,
because you would be exiled.

Nobody would speak to you
and you were then beyond society,

because of the word of a Druid.

Little evidence remains of these
powerful priests of Celtic society,

beyond legends of oaks,
mistletoe and golden sickles.

But discoveries of unusual
and mysterious spoons

are thought to be connected
to the indispensable art of divination.

What is this collection of weirdness?

Well, we have got here,
a pair of replica spoons.

And they are called divination spoons.
Divination means telling the future.

And they were used by Druids
in the Iron Age.

One of the spoons
has got a hole drilled into it.

The other spoon is divided
in its inner surface

- into four quadrants.
- All right.

And I think they were used
together, placed like that,

and then something blown
or dripped through the hole.

And then, the spoons will be opened
to see where on the quartered surface

- it would fall.
- Okay.

If you want your ancestors
to speak to you about,

perhaps, where you should go next
or where your herds should go,

to do that you'd use their bones.

Rather you than me.

So, we can see that the powder
that I blew through this hole

has not landed, as you might think,
exactly opposite the hole,

but down in this left hand corner here.

So, we could try a little liquid now,
couldn't we? This is where you come in.

I am guessing
that's not ketchup.

Er, no, it's not
tomato juice, it's blood.

Okay.

You've got actually
quite a nice patterning there.

But it is like telling the tea leaves.

You're getting this definite shape.

So, you would come to the Druids

or the Druids would be
consulted by someone

- in a position of power
- Mmm.

- Who would ask specific questions.
- Yes.

"Why are the flocks afflicted

- "with this disease?"
- That's right.

"Should we go to war

- "with the neighbours?"
- That's right.

And it would be in the gift
of the Druid to interpret this

- any way he wanted?
- Of course.

So, if the Druid wants to go to war,
the Druid can make that happen?

Absolutely. And the Druids
would know perfectly well

both the questions and the answers
that they were after.

So, I think what you've got here is
a means of manipulating the future

and manipulating power.

The Druids were men so powerful

that even the Celtic kings
danced to their tune.

But, despite their huge influence,
apart from divination spoons,

definite evidence of Druids
has never been found.

But there is one possibility.

This is the skull of a man who died

around 200 years BC,
aged between 30 and 35 years old.

He was buried in an Iron Age cemetery
in Deal, in Kent.

He has been known as the Deal Warrior

because with him, in his grave,
there was a sword.

But there's something more interesting

and more mysterious
about this character.

When the skeleton was being excavated,
back in the 80s,

the people working on it noticed
that, while he was definitely male,

the bones were slight, slender.

In fact, somebody said of him
that the bones

were of a slightly feminine nature.

So, something definitely un-warriorlike.

So, what is going on?
What else do we know?

He was buried wearing this
elaborate, enigmatic headgear.

It wasn't padded or lined in leather.

It was worn directly on the head.

And we know that because traces

of this individual's hair
were found trapped in the rim.

For that reason,
and because it is so slight,

it is highly unlikely that it was ever
worn as a military helmet

to give protection
to a man's head in combat.

The only other artefacts like it

are the headgear
worn by religious leaders

in Roman Britain 200 years later.

So, was he something like that?

The fascinating possibility,
and it's only a possibility,

is that this individual, in life,

was of that most mysterious
caste of people, a Druid,

who walked this land 200 years
before the birth of Christ.

And, if so, what events did he witness

and what power did he wield?

By the time of the Celtic kings,

the age of the hill forts
was coming to an end.

Even the greatest of them, the mega hill
forts like Danebury, were in decline.

Trade with mainland Europe
had brought wealth and power,

at least to the few.

But those contacts
were bringing Britain to the brink

of another new age.

Look at this.
It's a fragment of a storage vessel.

It was found 40 odd miles
from here, on the coast,

and it was made, maybe, 75 years BC.

This vessel didn't
contain local produce.

Rather, it held something

from many hundreds of miles away
to the south on mainland Europe.

This contained wine, possibly
from the vineyards of Rome itself.

Now, this speaks
of a remarkable transformation.

From a land 400, maybe 300, years BC,

with tribal chieftains
fighting over booty,

to a land of proto-kingdoms,

whose leaders had acquired
a taste for and had access to

the finest luxuries
that the classical world could offer.

It was the height of the Celtic
Iron Age, with all its feasting,

and Druids,
and the full glory of Celtic art.

But this represents something
much more powerful as well

because, by now, the Roman Empire
was fully on the move,

had already placed the shadow
of its hand over Gaul.

Soon the leaders here would be
tasting more than Roman wine.

They'd be tasting Roman swords, as well,

and that would mark the beginning
of a whole new era in our history.

Next time, my journey continues.

The lesson there is don't stand still

if a man on a horse
is coming at you with a sword.

As I encounter a whole new age

of invasion.

These beaches were lined
with thousands of British warriors.

And out there,
two legions of Roman infantry

and, at their head, Julius Caesar,
Roman general and budding emperor.

A time of bloody conflict.

These men were executed,
their heads were cut off their bodies

and their heads were stuck on spikes.

This is what would happen to you
if you got in the way of Rome.

A moment in our history that would
change the face of Britain forever.

Ripped By mstoll